If you put one movie on your must watch list, make it Women Talking.

Women Talking is a variety when it comes to on-screen storytelling, a film that is able to capture trauma, grief, and abuse in a way that doesn't shy away from the darkness, but also never feels exploitative. 

It's also a beautiful love letter to female relationships, and the complexities, love, feuds, and laughter that come with them.

Women Talking was written and directed by Sarah Polley and is based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Miriam Toews.

As the title suggests, the majority of the film is indeed just women talking, clustered together in a hayloft with time running out as they struggle to make a life-changing decision.

It may sound like a simplistic premise, but this is a film overflowing with scene-stealing performances, dialogue that will break your heart in two and when you finish watching it, you will completely understand why it was nominated for the 2032 Academy Awards in the Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay categories.

From director Sarah Polley, watch the official trailer for Women Talking now, only in cinemas February 16. Post continues below.

The women in the film are members of an agrarian religious community that keeps a complete distance from modern society. If it were not for a few brief scenes in the film where you see a car drive through their community, belting out the Monkees’ classic tune Daydream Believer, you would easily believe this movie was set over 100 years in the past.

From the opening moments of the film, you can feel how high the stakes are for these characters. 

Through a series of brief flashback scenes, we learn that the men of the colony, the women's brothers, husbands, sons, and neighbours have been sneaking into the women's bedrooms at night and knocking them out with a spray used to tranquilize livestock before raping them.

No one, from the eldest members of the community to the littlest girls, have been safe from these attacks, and when the colony’s elders finally admit to the problem (only after a group of the men were caught) the men are held in jail and the women are given two days to find it in themselves to forgive them.

Instead, they take a vote.

Forgive the men. Stay and fight. Or leave.  

The cast of Women Talking. Image: Universal Pictures.

It's a testament to the performances of the cast that every beat of Women Talking vibrates with power and heart, a movie that can expertly hold the audience's attention with moments of silence just as easily as it does with the more action-packed turns.

Claire Foy's Salome is a furious advocate for the group staying and fighting, while Rooney Mara's softly spoken Ona is quietly breaking away from their way of life. 

There is also Jessie Buckley's beaten but fiercely protective Mariche, Judith Ivey's wise Agata, and Frances McDormand as "Scarface" Janz, whose loyalty to the colony cannot be swayed by the years of abuse.

Ben Whishaw's character August is the lone man with dialogue in the movie, the colony's school teacher who the women still trust, invited into the hayloft to keep the minutes of the meeting, as none of the women have been taught to read or write.

The women in the hayloft represent three different generations from the colony, and as they come together to make this life-changing decision, the power of female relationships plays out on screen in a way that is rarely seen.

They fight, and they sob and they hold each other for support. They bicker and snipe and then moments later are lost in laughter over shared jokes and experiences. A level of intimacy reserved for women who have been raised side-by-side as sisters.

Towards the end of Women Talking I found myself digging my nails into the cinema seat in anticipation, feeling like time was running out for them and terrified they might not get to safety.

The time spent with these characters makes them feel like living, fully formed people and you cannot help but become wholly invested in their story.

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of Women Talking is how universal it feels.

Yes, these women are talking about escaping in buggies, wearing aprons, and drawing water from a well. Yet their conversations about the trauma of abuse, the weight of family and motherhood, and how choosing to leave a violent situation is never easy, feels incredibly close to home.

Watching Women Talking reminds us that these conversations are still happening to women around us right now, trying to escape impossible but dangerous home situations.

Women Talking is a brilliant, unmissable film, with a story that will stay with you long after the credits roll.

Watch Universal Pictures' Women Talking in cinemas February 16.

Feature Image: Universal Pictures.